This Inuit woman, photographed by the Scottish botanist-explorer Isobel Wylie Hutchison in the 1920s, is dressed in her colourful traditional national costume. The most characteristic part of this outfit is perhaps the "kamiker", or heel-less sealskin top-boots, which reach up to the knee in the case of men, but well above that in the case of women, as illustrated here. The outer surface of the women's boots is dyed white, scarlet, or blue, and decorated with abstract geometrical patterns of brightly-coloured leather strips. There is a removable inner lining which keeps the feet and legs warm. Hutchison found that such footwear was essential, not only for negotiating the slippery rocks and shingle, but for protection against insect bites.

Shaman's mirror costume from North East Manchuria, The Peoples Republic of China.

“This Shaman’s costume (pictures above) is one of a series of elements which allowed a shaman’s body to transform into a ‘vessel’ that received different spirits. Among the Imin Numinchen, shamans were primarily concerned with healing, prediction and with people’s relations with their ancestors. This costume belonged to a young female shaman who died in the 1930s, aged 25. No two costumes are identical. They are assembled and added to as a shaman becomes more experienced, incorporating materials from different sources. The brass mirrors came from Chinese merchants. The heavy shaman’s mirrors act in a double capacity – they protect the shaman by deflecting harm, while revealing what is normally invisible to the human eye. The number of mirrors on the costume indicates the shaman’s powers and maps a geographical cosmos. By wearing the costume, the shaman is located in the centre of this cosmos. During performance, a shaman is seized by one or more ancestral spirits, so that what is inside the mirror-costume is the spirits, rather than the shaman’s body. Here, the body is something open to forces that can control it, inhabit its form and shape its physical features.”